[LST] I Do

TV Programme: Lost
Season: 3
Episode: 6
Date I watched this episode: 15/07/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: Less than 1 day.
Centric for: Kate

This was the midseason finale for this season. We were promised by the producers (see my pre-season notification) a "high octane" miniseries for the first six episodes, and while it hasn't consistently been that, this episode certainly was. The episode ended at a point where I felt this season has really STARTED for good. But first things first.

We had yet another character-building flashback sequence, but this one wasn't actually too bad. Kate's reluctance to settle, as first seen during "Born To Run", causes her to throw away her chances of happiness. It really was that pregnancy test that brought it home, and showed more clearly than before that her desire to run is really borne out of an insecurity that runs through her. She doesn't believe she has what it takes to be a mother, and so she doesn't. Her call with Edward Mars was also excellent - and reminds me in some ways of a similar call between Michael Scofield and Alexander Mahone (in [PRB] "Unearthed").

However now Kate is thrown into the arms of another man, Sawyer, and in this episode, finally, they consummate their relationship. Well that's been a long time coming, and only brought to the surface by the fact that they think Sawyer is going to die the next day. Sawyer also showed how much he really cared for Kate by not wanting to tell her that they were on a separate island.

I do think though that Sawyer has really got himself into this mess with Pickett. He's constantly looking for trouble, and doesn't seem to recognise that he doesn't have the upper hand anymore. It shows that Kate's discussion with Jack, while great cinematically, counted for nothing, as Pickett was ready to just kill Sawyer anyway. In the end, Sawyer really did narrowly escape death; I don't think Ben would have been too bothered if he had woken up to find Sawyer had been killed (Pickett may have got a slap on the wrist) but it would have damaged the dynamics of the group forever).

Jack really is motivated to get off the island by the sight of Kate and Sawyer together; he is pretty jealous of Sawyer, who also had a sexual encounter with Ana-Lucia last season, whom Jack clearly had a bit of a crush on. Jack and Ben are pretty frank with each other in all their conversations and they both knew they'd come to an arrangement eventually (Ben seems to see Jack as his diplomatic equal). However the way in which this happened was very interesting. Juliet told Jack that his door was slightly open - but surely this must have been part of a plan by Ben, although it seemed to Jack that it was part of Juliet's plan to kill Ben. So it's really very confusing where Juliet's loyalties lie at the moment and exactly who she's deceiving.

On the "other island", the only thing really going on was Eko's funeral and since I wasn't that bothered with his death, it just didn't feel emotional. This whole part of the episode was just a bit pointless, including the red herring of Locke going off to fetch Eko's stick. Luckily it didn't go on too long.

So the climax of this midseason was essentially Jack breaking his Hippocratic Oath by intentionally harming Ben and taking control of the situation. He's telling Kate to do what she does best and "Kate Dammit Run!" While Tom is seen to want to protect Ben, and giving orders directly to Danny Pickett to comply with Jack's demands (so The Others is more hierarchical than we first thought) I can't really see how they are going to be able to survive; there's not many places to hide on an island "twice the size of Alcatraz", and I can't see how they could get off the island where they are now...

This was a very exciting end to the episode and the "six episode miniseries" and leaves me almost salivating for the continuation of this third season.